Chapter Ninety-One: Preparations Before the National Exam, Part Two (Eighth Update, Please Subscribe)

After rejecting the proposal, he went back to relentless practice.

Two months later, he still had not found a suitable weapon on the campus network, so he had no choice but to give up exchanging for one on school grounds.

He registered a new account directly on Yuntai City’s trading platform, listed his gear, set his asking standards, and then returned to weapon training.

This time, however, not even ten minutes after he had posted the listing, several people had already inquired about it, and they even sent over screenshots of the weapon’s attributes.

A glance at those pieces of gear immediately quickened Chu Cheng’s pulse.

Looking at the contacts, they all carried the suffix of some chamber of commerce or other.

"If you want to buy something, you really do have to find a professional."

Even at schools, rare epic-grade equipment was scarce enough; it was difficult enough to find one that matched his needs, yet these chambers of commerce each had more than one.

While he was still in a daze, two more inquiry messages appeared on the communication screen.

Chu Cheng was not one to dawdle over such matters. He quickly reviewed the screenshots attached to all the quotations, and soon chose an epic-grade one-handed sword that matched Frozen perfectly.

Frost Thorn, a deep purple epic-grade weapon

Equipment type: One-handed sword

Requirements: Constitution 50, Strength 50

Base attack: 106 slashing, 113 piercing

Bonus attribute: Strength +15

Bonus attribute: Agility +15

Additional effect: Frost. Each attack deals 30 extra points of frost damage, while reducing movement speed by 30 points and attack speed by 30 percent for 3 seconds.

Skill / Active: Frost Thorn. Launches a frost spike that strikes the target, reducing the target's movement speed and frost resistance by 100 points, and dealing frost damage equal to 100 percent of maximum attack per second for 7 seconds. Cooldown: 3 minutes.

Evaluation: A bone-piercing chill coils around the blade.

The moment he saw this weapon, Chu Cheng chose it without the slightest hesitation.

Its attributes were formidable, combining slowing effects with explosive burst; when paired with Frozen, the resulting instant damage was astonishing.

The bidder was a chamber of commerce called Heng'an Trading Company. Chu Cheng checked its credentials and found it was an old-established firm with a history of more than 160 years.

"This is the one."

Once the deal was settled, the company manager personally came to the school gate, and in less than half an hour the transaction was complete. Frost Thorn was in his hands.

When the two ice-attribute one-handed swords were combined, the crystal-clear blade shimmered with blue light flowing within it, beautiful beyond measure.

With the weapon secured, preparations for the college entrance exam were basically finished.

There were still a few imperfections, of course, such as equipment socketing.

An epic-grade one-handed sword could have up to six sockets carved into it, but he had no money.

The first socket cost only 1 gold, the second 2 gold, the third 4 gold, the fourth 8 gold, and so on, with the sixth costing 32 gold.

To carve six sockets into a piece of equipment that originally had none would cost a total of 63 gold.

Filling all six sockets with rare-quality gems would cost another 18 gold, bringing the total to 81 gold.

That was only in the best-case scenario, though. In reality, the further you went, the lower the success rate became. If it failed once, the weapon’s socket limit would be permanently locked, and no new sockets could ever be opened.

Take Frozen, for example: it initially had three sockets. If opening the fourth socket failed, then this purple-grade weapon’s socket limit would be reduced from six to three, and its total value would plummet.

It was not merely a matter of losing three sockets. Too few sockets meant there would not be enough room to embed the necessary magical runes, making it impossible to forge a rune word.

An epic-grade weapon was already worthy of the enormous cost required to craft a rune word for it.

A so-called rune word was formed by embedding multiple different magical runes into an item’s sockets in a specific order.

When these designated magical runes were all inserted into a single piece of equipment, they would undergo a peculiar reaction, condensing into a powerful core of force known as a rune word, granting the item extremely potent magical properties.

To put it simply, if any epic-grade item were fitted with a rune word compatible with its attributes, its power would instantly soar to a level no weaker than that of orange-grade equipment.

If an orange-grade item were used as the base material for a rune word, the effect would be even more astonishing.

Rune words belonged to the enchantment system and also required recipes, but their recipes were extraordinarily rare.

Smaller factions might not lack them entirely, but even if they possessed one, they would be unable to keep it. Only the very top powers had rune word recipes.

Yuntai City had no top-tier power, so there was no way for anyone there to come into contact with rune words. He could only wait until he got into a higher institution, where such things would certainly exist.

So for now, Chu Cheng only wanted to socket in a few gems to raise his attributes. He had not given rune words, that pinnacle of enchantment, the slightest consideration.

By this point, everything that could be prepared had been prepared, and all that remained was to wait for the entrance exam.

In the following month, Chu Cheng elevated all his newly learned weapon skills to mastery, with the sole exception of the staff weapon skill, which remained at basic level.

When he came out of the training grounds and opened his communicator, there were two new messages.

One was from the family, a blessing sent in the clan head’s name to all relatives about to take the exam. It had been mass-sent.

Beneath the blessing was an additional notice: the family’s customary aid.

Anyone who successfully entered a higher institution would receive a 10-gold grant.

Anyone who entered a first-rate institution would receive 50 gold.

Anyone who made it into a top-tier institution would receive 100 gold outright.

Chu Cheng looked at it and smiled with genuine warmth.

Though his cheap father was miserably stingy, the family itself was not bad. Those rewards could hardly be called insubstantial.

The other message was from his homeroom teacher:

"The college entrance exam is about to begin. Come to the classroom immediately and gather for a declaration of your current status."

He hurried back to the dormitory, took a quick shower, and then headed out.

Back in Classroom Five, Chu Cheng returned to his seat. Soon after, Zhang Chunlei and the others rushed back as well, greeted him, and sat down.

Faced with the most important turning point in their lives, none of them was in the mood for idle chatter.

When the assembly time arrived, their homeroom teacher, Duan Yuqin, pushed open the door and walked in. Standing before the lectern, she said directly to them:

"The entrance exam is still two days away, but today and tomorrow you must report your current status in advance, including level, attributes, and equipment. On the day of the exam, you will be tested according to the status you have reported. Equipment may not be changed midway. Anyone found violating this rule will be treated as cheating."

"Everyone, come with me."

With that, she turned and left, not caring whether any students were late.

Chu Cheng was surprised to discover that only a dozen or so people from the whole class had come. Curious, he asked Zhang Hong beside him,

"Is that all? Aren't we waiting for the others?"

Zhang Hong shook his head.

"That’s it. The others aren’t taking the exam."

"Why not?"

Zhang Hong turned back in surprise and said,

"You didn't know? Not everyone has the ability to get into a higher institution. If they feel they’re not up to it, they can skip the exam, graduate directly, and enter society."

"This is still too few, isn't it?"

"Not really. For a normal class like ours, having more than ten is already pretty good."

The status declaration itself was simple. The school did not record his attribute data and equipment data manually. Instead, a special magic array was used to record his current state, which was then transmitted to the entrance exam committee as a backup.

When the exam came, it would be checked again to confirm whether everything matched.

If there was any discrepancy, he would be judged guilty of cheating without exception and disqualified from the exam.

Two hours later, Chu Cheng had completed the backup. After that, all that remained was to wait for the entrance exam to begin.